Mary Two-Axe Earley (1911–1996) National Historic Person
© Status of Women Canada / National Archives / Government of Canada
Mary Two-Axe Earley was designated as a national historic person in 2025.
Historical importance: innovative leader who worked to bring First Nations women’s issues to the forefront of the women’s movement provincially, nationally, and internationally, helped inspire and mobilize the next generations.
Commemorative plaque: no plaque installedFootnote 1
Mary Two-Axe Earley (1911–1996)
This Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) woman was a leading advocate for the equality of First Nations women and an innovative leader who worked to bring First Nations women’s issues to the forefront of the women’s movement. Mary Two-Axe Earley raised national consciousness of the sex discrimination she and many First Nations women experienced because of section 12(1)b of the Indian Act and successfully campaigned for its amendment, so that other women would be able to retain and transmit “Indian” status to their children if they married non-status men. Following changes to the Indian Act in 1985, she was the first person to regain her status.
Mary Two-Axe was born in Kahnawà:ke (formerly Caughnawaga), on the St. Lawrence River, south of Montréal, Quebec. She spent much of her early childhood in Kahnawà:ke, lived at Fort Totten, North Dakota, for a time and returned to Kahnawà:ke after her mother’s death. At age 18, Two-Axe moved to Brooklyn, New York, to find work. In 1938, Mary Two-Axe married Irish American engineer Edward Earley in Kahnawà:ke. They raised their two children in Brooklyn, returning to Kahnawà:ke in the summertime, as did many other families of her community.
In 1966, Two-Axe Earley began a letter-writing and speaking campaign to raise awareness of First Nations women’s loss of rights under the Indian Act upon marriage to non-status men. She firmly believed that the stress of being denied property rights contributed to the death of her friend Florence and saw similar injustices happening to many other First Nations women across the country. After her husband died in 1969, Two-Axe Earley tried to move back to the house she inherited from her grandparents in Kahnawà:ke. However, according to section 12(1)b of the Indian Act, she no longer held Indian status because she had lost her status when she married a non-status man, and therefore could not own property on reserve. Two-Axe Earley was forced to transfer ownership of the house to her daughter who had married a Kanien’kehá:ka man and therefore regained her Indian status and property rights.
For over 20 years, Two-Axe Earley worked to bring First Nations women’s issues to the forefront of the women’s movement provincially, nationally, and internationally. In 1967, Two-Axe Earley founded Equal Rights for Indian Women and co-founded Indian Rights for Indian Women. She gave testimony voicing First Nations women’s concerns to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada in 1968. She participated many times in the National Action Committee on the Status of Women sessions beginning in 1972. In 1974, she helped establish the Québec Native Women’s Association. She was a delegate at the World Conference of International Women’s Year in 1975 in Mexico City. Her tireless efforts to organize and represent Indigenous women in the face of considerable opposition across Canada, an opposition rooted in systemic colonialism and patriarchy, had a direct impact on many lives and helped inspire and mobilize the next generations, who continue to demand sex equality for First Nations women and their children, and to have their status restored.
This press backgrounder was prepared at the time of the Ministerial announcement in 2025.
The National Program of Historical Commemoration relies on the participation of Canadians in the identification of places, events and persons of national historic significance. Any member of the public can nominate a topic for consideration by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
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